As I write this, it is the last day of the year 2020. I’m not going to lie; it’s been a bad year for a lot of people. There’s been a worldwide economic downturn, a pandemic, and a huge shift in most everyone’s lives. It has been a huge and challenging time for the world and I’ve no doubt it will be no harder next year. But for us, time is finite. We are not given limitless amounts of it and you never know how much you really have, from start to end. Sometimes, it seems as if those who do not deserve it have an abundance of it, while those who clearly deserved more have it all cut short in tragic circumstances. It all seemingly mocks us, as if to hammer home the point that life isn’t fair and it never will be. Or is it?
As I’ve aged, I’ve less looked at life at being about whether or not it’s fair; it simply is. You have a life and a certain amount of time and it is up to you what to do with both. You may use then to accomplish nothing more than that which makes you happy; you may utilize them to reach for the stars and create grand works of humanity; or you may use them to simply sit back and rage about how the hand dealt was unfair, unjust, cruel, and so forth. Whether or not these are legitimate uses of either is not my job to decide. Nor is it for anyone else to judge. You, and you alone, determine whether or not life and time are well spent.
There are those that say a life not spent pursuing traditional paths are wasted, that getting a good job, a home, a marriage, and starting a family are the only way to live a meaningful life. There are those that say that the only life pursuing is doing that which makes you alone happy — that no one but you is important in the world. There are those that say unless you do everything in your power to serve humanity, you’re a waste of subhuman filth and how dare you think of only yourself. Don’t let popular sentiment determine the path you take. Everything should be done in moderation: consider others, but don’t neglect yourself; work, but don’t let it dominate your life; pursue your own happiness, but remember that of others as you do so. Walking that path is the difficult part and we all stray now and again. That’s part of being human — making mistakes.
Time, like life, is what you make of it. A year, like any other, can be good or bad. You can decide to take this time and call it the worst period ever, or you can simply take it for what it is: neither good nor bad, but merely time. And time, like our lives, eventually fades.